EL002 Pre-sessional Programme 2010Grammar and Vocabulary DevelopmentSession 8

Alternative complex sentence structuresThe passive voice

Take the statements that are true for you and rewrite them as just one sentence. The sentence should start in exactly the same way as those above but it should continue with the same information that you find in the second sentence. 1.I found some money in a public place. I kept the money for myself.

2.I know a person. The person loves cooking.

3.I have a friend. I had a physical fight with this friend.

4.I know a Saudi man. The Saudi man has curly red hair.

5.I ate a delicious main course. After the delicious meal I ate an chocolate pudding.

6.I read an article. In the article, the writer claims that the ability to recognize emotions is linked to the ability to convey emotions.

7.I know a place. In this eat wonderful seafood.

8.I’ve been to an interesting place. Nobody else in this room has even heard of this interesting place.

Take the statements that are true for you and rewrite them as just one sentence. The sentence should start in exactly the same way as those above but it should continue with the same information that you find in the second sentence. 1.I found some money, which I kept for myself, in a public place.

2.I know a person who loves cooking.

3.I have a friend with whom I had a physical fight.

4.I know a Saudi man whose hair is curly and red.

5.I ate a delicious main course, after which I ate an chocolate pudding.

6.I read an article in which the writer claims that the ability to recognize emotions is linked to the ability to convey emotions.

7.I know a place where you can eat wonderful seafood.

8.I’ve been to an interesting place which nobody else in this room has even heard of.

How many relative clauses can you find in the abstract?

The involvement of facial mimicry in different aspects of human emotional processing is widely debated. However, little is known about relationships between voluntary activation of facial musculature and conscious recognition of facial expressions. To address this issue, we assessed severely motor-disabled patients with complete paralysis of voluntary facial movements due to lesions of the ventral pons [locked-in syndrome (LIS)]. Patients were required to recognize others' facial expressions and to rate their own emotional responses to presentation of affective scenes. LIS patients were selectively impaired in recognition of negative facial expressions, thus demonstrating that the voluntary activation of mimicry represents a high-level simulation mechanism crucially involved in explicit attribution of emotions.

How many relative clauses can you find in the abstract?

The involvement of facial mimicry in different aspects of human emotional processing is widely debated. However, little is known about relationships between voluntary activation of facial musculature and conscious recognition of facial expressions. To address this issue, we assessed severely motor-disabled patients with complete paralysis of voluntary facial movements due to lesions of the ventral pons [locked-in syndrome (LIS)]. Patients were required to recognize others' facial expressions and to rate their own emotional responses to presentation of affective scenes. LIS patients were selectively impaired in recognition of negative facial expressions, thus demonstrating that the voluntary activation of mimicry represents a high-level simulation mechanism crucially involved in explicit attribution of emotions.

Look at each verb phrase and decide why the writer used either the active or passive voice in each case:

The involvement of facial mimicry in different aspects of human emotional processing is widely debated. However, little is known about relationships between voluntary activation of facial musculature and conscious recognition of facial expressions. To address this issue, we assessed severely motor-disabled patients with complete paralysis of voluntary facial movements due to lesions of the ventral pons [locked-in syndrome (LIS)]. Patients were required to recognize others' facial expressions and to rate their own emotional responses to presentation of affective scenes. LIS patients were selectively impaired in recognition of negative facial expressions, thus demonstrating that the voluntary activation of mimicry represents a high-level simulation mechanism crucially involved in explicit attribution of emotions.

Television was invented in the 1920s.

Before child labour laws were introduced in Britain, children used to be employed in factories.

Nuclear weapons had never been used before 1945.

When I entered the room, Khaled was being kissed by a beautiful woman.

Pancakes are made from eggs, flour, and milk.

English grammar has been studied for hundreds of years.

The causes of global warming are currently being investigated.

New forms of public transport will be invented in the future.

A cure for cancer will have been found by 2075.

• What’s the difference between OBJECT and REJECT? (both verbs)

• As a noun, is OPPOSITION countable or uncountable?

• What’s the difference between NEAR TO and NEARBY?

What’s the difference between PRESENT and DEMONSTRATE?

• What’s the difference between ENCOUNTER and CONFRONT?

• Do you know any idiomatic expressions containing the words ARM, HAND, or REACH?

I sympathize most with the boy, because I can

imagine doing the same things he did if I was in his

situation. In other words, if I had a girlfriend who

slept with another man for £500, I would find it

impossible to forgive her. I do feel sorry for her,

though. She did what she did for the right reasons,

but I think if she had truly loved her boyfriend, she

would have known how much her action would upset

him.

I can’t make up my mind about the friend. If my

friends knew something important about my

relationships then I would want them to tell me.

However, if the friend had kept quiet, the boy and girl

wouldn’t have split up and they would still be happy

now. Also, if I was the friend, I don’t think I would

have been able to tell the boy what had really

happened.

I consider the boatman and the rich man to be quite similar

because they both take advantage of the girl’s situation. I

can’t sympathize with the rich man because I would never ask

a woman to sleep with me in exchange for money. The

boatman doesn’t seem so bad because “he was only doing

his job” and if he had taken the girl to the other island for free,

then everyone else would have expected the same treatment

and his business would have collapsed. However, he didn’t

show any compassion and only saw her situation in financial

terms, so I can’t respect him.